ABSTRACT
A woman has to create a way of writing to express herself first and foremost, taking into account that this is not as easy or as simple as it seems since the maie literary tradition is the most common and the most influential. (Salwa Bakr, in Angele Botros Samaan 1994:7)
GENDER AND LINGUISTIC DUALITY: SPOKEN VS. WRITTEN DISCOURSE
The debate over the relationship between language and gender in the literature has taken different forms since the early part of the twentieth century. Observations that in some Native American languages certain linguistic forms are sex-exclusive in their use prompted an interest in and a subséquent long debate over sex-based differences in language. The debate – originally inspired by the work of such linguists and anthropologists as Otto Jesperson (on Carib [1922]), Mary Haas (on Koasati [1944]), and Edward Sapir (on Yana [1929])2 – has become a core sociolinguistic issue since the 1960s when the work of William Labov on social stratification in New York City provided research tools and méthodologies previously unavailable. It is Robin Lakoff, however, who must be credited with inspiring the debate over the linguistic oppression of women and the feminization of this body of literature. The publication of her monograph, Language and Woman s Place (1975), prompted many empirical studies, some explicitly designed and conducted to test her claims.3
